Showing titles in Con Artists, Hoaxes & Deceptions

Like many aspiring writers, David Breithaupt had money problems. But what he also had was unsupervised access to one of the finest special collections libraries in the country. In October 1990, Kenyon College hired David Breithaupt as its library's part-time evening supervisor. In April 2000 he was fired after a Georgia librarian discovered him selling a letter by Flannery O'Connor on eBay, but that was only the tip of the iceberg. Breithaupt had been browsing the collection, taking from it whatever rare books, manuscripts, and documents caught his eye.

Ann Rule presents another collection of fascinating and disturbing true-crime stories - drawn from her real-life personal files - in this seventeenth volume in the #1 New York Times bestselling Crime Files series.

After meeting through mutual friends, the 'Russian heiress' Anna Delvey and Rachel DeLoache Williams soon became inseparable. Theirs was an intoxicating world of endless excess: high dining, personal trainer sessions, a luxury holiday and Anna footed almost every bill. But after Anna's debit card was declined in a Moroccan medina whilst on holiday in a five-star luxury resort, Rachel began to suspect that her increasingly mysterious friend was not all she seemed.

Of the millions who go missing every year around the world, there are those who simply vanish and are never seen again. The sheer volume of people who disappear each and every year are, when examined in detail, terrifying. In this audiobook, we will touch upon some of the most terrifying, touching, strange, and worrying stories. In this audiobook, we hope to examine the sheer range of cases which have enthralled the interested, and distressed those involved for many years. Some of these cases became national stories, while others remain private tragedies.

These gruesome stories have peppered the pages of newspapers and history books over the centuries. Some are well-known. Some aren’t. They rest in that murky place between true crime and horror. All will make your blood run cold.

On a spring day in 1926, Aimee Semple McPherson wandered into the Pacific Ocean and vanished. Weeks later she reappeared in the desert, claiming to have been kidnapped. A national media frenzy and months of investigation ensued. Who was this woman? America’s most famous evangelist, McPherson was a sophisticated marketer who used spectacle, storytelling, and the newest technology—including her own radio station—to bring God’s message to the masses.

If you want to keep a secret, put it on Facebook! What would you do if you found out that the man you married had a secret life that culminated in the ultimate betrayal? Yve Gibney tells the real-life story from their love-at-first-sight chance encounter while working as expats in Nigeria to the gradual realization that her husband of 19 years, Maurice Gibney, was actually full of deceit, manipulation, and coercive control and that their marriage had been a lie from the moment they had met.

The instant bestselling story of Lee Mackenzie, who was a capable and confident young woman, studying broadcast journalism and honing her skills of observation and objectivity. She was also a little unworldly, the product of a small, rural Western Canadian community where doors were never locked and life was simple and direct. On a backpacking trip in the UK, she met the man who would become her husband. A man who everyone agreed was one of the most intelligent, charming people they had ever met.

This book details the 20 top conspiracy theories. The book describes the history, the beliefs surrounding the theories, and the reasons for the conspiracy theories. You will learn that some people believe that the government is releasing toxic chemicals into the air and the water. There are also numerous theories about the government and their knowledge of aliens and UFOs.

Max the Forger is an artist and gentleman whose colorful lifestyle has spanned over 70 years. He has lived under the strict regime of Barnardo’s children’s homes, been an elephant handler in the circus, lived rough, busked his way from Brighton to Bombay, sold his fakes up and down the country, dined with dukes, socialized with celebrities, associated with gangsters, served time in prison, and donated tens of thousands to charity. And through it all, he never stopped smiling, and loving life - and missing his mum.

To many, the name Carl Switzer doesn't ring a bell; the name Alfalfa, however, does. As Alfalfa, the freckle-faced kid with an unmanageable cowlick, Switzer won movie fame in the Our Gang comedies of the early 1930s. Carl Switzer played the iconic character from 1935-1940, and his popularity surpassed many of the other characters. At the time, no one could've foreseen the tragic circumstances that lead to the end of Switzer's life within 20 years of him leaving the show.

While touring South America, some of the sites in the amazing and unparalleled Brazil, certainly gave my group the chill. To the ones that asked me, "Conny, what happened on this much-discussed trip?" I always answered, "Yes, it really was off the chart." That being said, I didn't know where to start. One day, the idea popped, I'd write the unbelievable story. Finally, I did and found my glory. Anyone who traveled, or in the midst of traveling, perhaps planning a trip, yes Indeed, This book is a must-listen.

In November 1974, British MP and former cabinet minister John Stonehouse walked into the sea off a beach in Miami and disappeared, seemingly drowned. Then he was found—on the other side of the world, in Australia—and his extraordinary story began to come to light: a Labour cabinet minister and a devoted family man, also in a long-term affair with his secretary, and a spy for the Czech State Security agency, who had committed fraud and attempted to fake his own death to escape catastrophic business failures.

The Ponzi Housing Scheme is the financial crime of the 21st century. It makes Madoff look like an amateur because of scale. The crime was sophisticated in it's plan. This crime violated laws on the books. It violated laws that should be on the books. And it violated the trust that people have with the banking community, and this violation reaches to the highest bankers in the land and off our shores. This crime is complex, but it is not rocket science. The proof of culpability can be known.

There has never been a con-man trickster in American history as devious, or as likeable, as Randolph "Soapy" Smith. He was a sociopath with a smile that could melt the hardest heart. He was a man without a conscience, a natural criminal quite willing to steal from the hapless poor and the greedy rich with an equally shameless eagerness. Soapy’s only measure of man was the wallet he could empty from the day he learned how to cheat at cards, hide the pea in a shell game, or invent a scam.

In Los Angeles, a series of murders occurred during the summer of 1980 that left an indelible mark on countless individuals. This string of brutal and bloody crimes would make the already famous Sunset Boulevard aka the Sunset Strip infamous and a place forever synonymous with the word evil. This true story blends statements to law enforcement and trial testimony with personal accounts from those who experienced the events firsthand. The psychology behind these violent crimes is explored, along with a look at the psychological state and the possible motives of the individuals.

When Adam Parfrey tracked down Walter Keane - the credited artist of the weepy waifs - for a San Diego Reader cover story in 1992, he discovered some shocking facts. Decades of lawsuits and countersuits revealed the reality that Keane was more of a conman than an artist and that he forced his wife, Margaret, to sign his name to her own paintings. As a result those weepy waifs may not have been as capricious an invention as they seemed.

More than one-fifth of children want to become influencers, and it's easy to understand why. What if you could escape economic uncertainty by winning the internet's attention? What if you could turn the adoration of your social media followers into a lucrative livelihood? But as Symeon Brown explores in this searing exposé, the reality is much murkier. From IRL streamers in LA to Brazilian butt lifts, from sex workers on OnlyFans to fraudulent cryptocurrency schemes, these are the incredible stories that lurk behind the filtered selfies and gleaming smiles.

El 9 de diciembre de 2005, el reportero Pablo Reinah cubrió un “operativo” en el rancho Las Chinitas para Televisa. Se trataba de la captura de dos presuntos secuestradores de la banda Los Zodiaco: la francesa Florence Cassez y el mexicano Israel Vallarta. Poco después, se supo que este “operativo” había sido un montaje. La noticia se volvió un escándalo mediático y político de proporciones inimaginables que puso al descubierto las ineficiencias y la corrupción que atraviesan al sistema de justicia mexicano.

Ann Rule, who shared her own nerve-jangling account of unknowingly befriending sadistic sociopath Ted Bundy in The Stranger Beside Me, chronicles other fateful encounters with the hidden predators among us in this riveting collection, fifteenth in the best-selling series drawn from her personal files. First in line is a stunning case that spanned thirty years and took a determined detective to four states - ending, finally, in Alaska - where he unraveled not one but two murders.